{"id":12,"date":"2004-11-14T18:40:48","date_gmt":"2004-11-14T23:40:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/?p=12"},"modified":"2008-04-19T09:20:08","modified_gmt":"2008-04-19T17:20:08","slug":"a-castle-keeper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/2004\/11\/14\/a-castle-keeper\/","title":{"rendered":"A Castle keeper"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday took me to Castle Rock State Park with a hiking club started by a guy named Mike and his wife, Kathy. The club’s called FOMFOK<\/a> for Friends of Mike, Friends of Kathy. It’s mostly them and their pals but they have a web site that invites strangers like me to come along. Unlike the speedsters I sorta hiked with Saturday, Mike and company keep a pace more to the liking of guys like me who finished last in every race they ever entered. <\/p>\n

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That’s Mike in the yellow shirt; Kathy’s at the left. They have the coolest cars: Mike drives a Toyota Prius and Kathy has a Cooper Mini. Their friend Dave is the guy in the dark hat; he forgot his hiking shoes (thought he’d left ’em in the car) and had to do 5 miles in glorified house slippers. He soldiered on fine. Everybody’s partaking of peanut butter-chocolate chip cookies — what better way to prepare for the trails? <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This is Castle Rock, one of the main attractions in the park, which is one of the most popular destinations in the Bay Area. More cool rocks and trees; this is all I ask of a trail. <\/p>\n

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The rock has all these indentations … heaven knows how they got there. <\/p>\n

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Mike in one of the biggest openings in the rock, which has all these holes that seem like they must’ve been bored by a giant drill bit. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Dave looks down at one of the waterfalls. This overlook is poised right on top of a sheer cliff<\/p>\n

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This is the scene looking down. There’s a trickle of water coming in from the left. It’s more of a stunning sight when the rain’s been pouring for a few weeks in January. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

On a clear day you can see the Pacific Ocean from here. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Smile, ladies! It occurred to me we could’ve had a Guys.vs.Girls edition of "Survivor" out here; the women would’ve cleaned our clocks. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Concern No. 1 is always "are we on the right trail?" <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Mike’s checking out the acorns. He uses them as molds for silver jewelry. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

These trees like to shed their bark. I asked Dave how come and he said, "oh, you know, it’s California." Which I translated to mean, "oh yeah, they like to get naked." <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Scenic vista No. 4,139,276 (another reason why people keep coming to California and never leave). <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Another big rock, with somebody climbing on it. Like somebody left it there for just such a purpose. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Makes you want to shove your hand in one of those holes and pull out a lion’s head like Bullwinkle, doesn’t it? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunday took me to Castle Rock State Park with a hiking club started by a guy named Mike and his wife, Kathy. The club’s called FOMFOK for Friends of Mike, Friends of Kathy. It’s mostly them and their pals but…<\/p>\n

Read the whole thing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}